The idle musings of a former military man, former computer geek, medically retired pastor and now full-time writer. Contents guaranteed to offend the politically correct and anal-retentive from time to time. My approach to life is that it should be taken with a large helping of laughter, and sufficient firepower to keep it tamed!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Fighting back against Big Brother intrusiveness

A few days ago I posted about commercial monitoring of our activities, both online and in our homes. I find the very idea infuriating, and an unwarrantable and unconscionable invasion of my privacy, but that's the 'brave new world' we live in, I'm afraid. It's unlikely to improve.

These days, it seems like everyone's out to violate your privacy. But even if you care about privacy, you probably don't want to leave the internet forever, so here are some of the best alternatives to some major services that actually respect your privacy.

Some services, like Google or Facebook, are very transparent in their privacy policies and you know what you're getting into when you sign up (if you actually read it). They also typically collect data for their own purposes, rather than anything nefarious—but they still collect a lot of data ... Obviously, we can't provide privacy-centric alternatives to every service out there, but here are a few replacements for popular services that collect too much data.

Face it: Google runs your life. The search giant turned web ecosystem owns your email, calendar, and even your voicemails. Your most important data lives on Google's servers. What you may not realize is that, despite the quality of Google's products, someone else is doing it better—and placing all your eggs in Google's basket isn't necessarily the best thing. Here's a look at alternative services you can use in place of Google's webapps.

You might want to move away from Google entirely, whether you're tired of things like the Google Plus-ification of your search results or the fact that Google's mining ridiculous amounts of data and selling you to advertisers, or maybe you're just plain tired of Google creating services it doesn't actually improve over time. You may scoff at the idea of using Bing or other less popular competitors, but they're quite good—sometimes even better—than Google. We've just become too entrenched to notice.

I have been looking for a different blogging host, and other ways to get my mail. Both Yahoo and Google are so pervasive in this field, that it's hard to find something suitable and safe.Isn't Bing associated with Microsoft? Would I be jumping from the pan into the fire?I have always wondered why there is not a conservative host available, instead of Y and G. Both of these were great Obama donors.